Amazing Police Work

The front page of the local daily had a story about a “rash of robberies” in Greenwich. In recent weeks there have been four high-profile armed robberies in the town of Greenwich. Amazingly, GPD has solved three of them within hours.

The two drug-related CVS robberies — one in Riverside and one on Greenwich Avenue — were solved with near-immediate speed by fine police work initially from the patrol division who spotted the suspects promptly after the crime was said to have been committed.

This past Sunday patrol supervisor, Sgt. John Thorme (known to many in the town of Greenwich as the handler for now retired K-9 officer Shilo, and first Neighbor Resource Officer or NRO for the East Sector Community and Police Partnership or “East CAPP”) spotted the Greenwich Avenue CVS suspect minutes after the alleged robbery. As NRO for East CAPP, Thorme arranged for CAPP members to experience a small sample of the training required of officers, including shoot, don’t shoot scenarios. Thorme’s training and experience paid dividends when he confronted the suspect who was armed with what appeared to be a Beretta hand-gun but turned out to be a look-alike BB gun. Thorme used excellent judgment and skill to have the suspect comply with his order to drop the gun. An inexperienced officer may have shot the armed suspect first. Thorme’s training and skill saved a life.

After the arrest of the Greenwich CVS suspect, officers from the detective division developed evidence to make an arrest of a different suspect in the Subway Sandwich Shop (28 Greenwich Ave.) robbery which happened less than 36 hours earlier.

The Riverside CVS robbery suspect was noticed within hours of the incident by patrol officer Schuttler who knew the suspect from prior police contact. She alerted other officers and with evidence developed by Detectives Pier Corticelli, William Weissauer, Rich Stook, Sgt. Joe Ryan, Sgt. Tim Hilderbrand, and Patrol Officer Barrow an arrest was made immediately.

Difficult economic times may explain the recent armed robberies. Outstanding police explains why the town of Greenwich remains a safe place.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 at 2:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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